An extension of aversive racism theory: are Asian students judged guiltier of academic misconduct than their caucasian counterparts?

Bolger, Gregory S. (Gregory Shane)
(2008)
An extension of aversive racism theory: are Asian students judged guiltier of academic misconduct than their caucasian counterparts?
Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English]
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Abstract

Dovidio and Gaertner's (2004) aversive racism theory was tested on a sample of students (96.5% Caucasian) at Memorial University of Newfoundland. A Pilot study (Study 1) revealed no aversive racism against Asian targets. In Study 2, first-year social science students (128 women, 63 men, 3 of gender unspecified) made judgments about the guilt of a Caucasian, an Asian, or an 'International student' target featured in one of three scenarios prejudged as Low, Moderate, or High in level of academic dishonesty. Participants judged the Asian target as guiltier of academic dishonesty than the Caucasian target in the Moderate and High-guilt scenario conditions. The significant differences found here are, however, to be interpreted cautiously. Given that nine planned comparisons were performed on the data, the possibility of Type I error is greatly increased. There is no conclusive evidence that aversive racism was found in the sample of students surveyed in this research.